Silvertip angled his face up to Dinez. “What do you think?” he asked.
“I think,” the head knight replied, “that Miss Cartier is possibly the most accomplished liar I have ever met.”
Chapter 15:
Prison Break
One of the most essential skills of the truly accomplished liar is the ability to successfully respond to accusations of falsehood. It’s appalling, how easy it is to fall apart when you get your beard caught in the mailbox. Even if you manage not to blurt out a full confession in the style of detective stories, your expression gives you away.
This is another problem with not fully building and maintaining your internal belief that you are telling the absolute truth; this is where the buried dissonance comes out fully. In such cases, it isn’t enough to believe what you’re saying; you must believe that you are an honest person. You have great pride in your integrity, but you are not irrationally angry, and you certainly aren’t calm and rehearsed.
“No, I’m not!” I said, shocked and bewildered. “Why would you even say that?” Anger crept into my body language. If someone didn’t answer me soon, I was going to find a high horse and climb on it.
“Let’s lay our cards on the table,” Silvertip proposed.
I nodded eagerly, as curious as I was offended. Silvertip was such a great man that he wouldn’t accuse me without some funny business going on, and I was sure that once he explained what it was, I could clear the air and my name. Then he’d apologize, and everything would be all right.
“I’ll tell you what we know,” Silvertip went on, “and you’ll tell us what you know. I’ll start:
“We know that you’re a spy. We guess that Avior recruited you while you were at university—you did, I believe, attend the University of Avior? Dinez has suggested that Batata might have sent you, but he doesn’t know Batata like I do; man wouldn’t have the stomach for it. So it was Avior.
“Like many spies, you found a job where you would be invisible but would have access to information of national importance and to influential and knowledgeable individuals. How am I doing so far?”
“You’re completely mad,” I said, awed.
“A spy working among spies,” Silvertip mused. “Brilliant. Lucio’s mind may be twisted, but one cannot deny his incredible foresight.”
“Lord Winter only became prefect two weeks ago,” I pointed out. “I’ve been out of university for three years.”
“Impressive, isn’t it?”
Silvertip’s delusional capacity? Astounding. And here I’d thought I’d have to act innocent. “I’m not a spy,” I said. “I’ve never been a spy, and I’ve never worked for Avior.”
Silvertip shook his head pityingly. “There’s no point in denying what we both know is true. Miss Cartier, I am not a patient man. It’s a failing of mine, I know. I’ve tried to remedy it, read self-help books on the subject, but it’s no good. I’m built to be a man who gets what he wants without waiting for it, and I recommend you remember that.”
He crossed his legs and leaned back, comfortably amused. I’d seen him do this before, in news casts. I appreciated it even less in person.
“No, I’m not patient,” he said, vastly misinterpreting my disbelief, “but I am reasonable. I understand your hesitation, and I’m not asking you to work for free. I’ll pay your normal rate twice over, starting your time log from when I had you arrested—which I did for verisimilitude, you understand, and to make sure you didn’t run off before I was ready for you.
“Now that that’s settled, it’s your turn. Tell me what Avior is planning. Tell me everything about the conference and its repercussions. Tell me especially what he thinks of and plans for me. Give me both theories as well as facts—I respect your opinion—but tell me which is which.”
If I were in his position, I’d sure want to know whether Avior planned to turn on me once the king was dead, so I could turn on him first.
I debated, unsure of the best response. Really, it depended on what sort of man Silvertip was. Having an ally could be a great benefit, but Silvertip wasn’t exactly honorable, and I didn’t trust him not to reveal to Avior what he’d found out from me.
Besides, ultimately what I wanted was for Silvertip to release me. If I told him I was a spy and told him what he expected to hear, would he really just let me go and call it good? He’d already demonstrated a willingness to imprison me.
As I deliberated, Silvertip moved to the chair next to me. Captain Dinez stiffened and postured and made a noise of protest, but Silvertip ignored him. He gripped my wrist, none too gently. “Tell me everything you’ve learned about the other prefects,” he insisted. “What is Avior planning? Is Lindo on the level? Why is Edenfield nervous?”
Edenfield was nervous? I cursed silently. If he’d found the spy equipment, we were in trouble. My boss could be walking directly into a trap.
I had to warn him—which meant I had to get out of here immediately.
“My lord, kindly release me,” I ordered Silvertip icily.
He let go of my wrist stiffly, honestly astonished.
I drew myself upright, the image of offended virtue. “Your behavior is appalling and inappropriate,” I informed him, “and I will not play along. How dare you arrest me on false charges, drag me here, touch me without my permission. For shame. You are a prefect, my lord, and your people look to you. You need to stop this now. Stop tormenting me! Let me go!”
I turned pleadingly to Captain Dinez. “I just want to go home.” My voice cracked on the last word, and I buried my head in my arms in an unsuccessful attempt to hide tears of exhaustion and hysteria. I could work myself up to a full panic attack if I had to, but that was a thoroughly unpleasant experience and left me shaky and useless for hours afterward, so I’d leave it as a last resort.
Through watery eyes, I saw Silvertip sit back, chin wrinkled in a frown, eyebrows furrowed. He didn’t seem put out or affronted by my accusation—that would take actual conscience—just baffled. “Are you sure she’s acting?” he asked Captain Dinez.
“At this point,” Dinez returned, “it doesn’t matter. Either she’s telling the truth, in which case she can’t help us, or she’s lying, in which case she won’t help us.”
“Please,” I said miserably, “just let me go home.”
Silvertip nodded with the same paternal warmth he granted small children and potentially generous donors. “If you are innocent, then I apologize for this,” he said, standing and returning to his original chair. “Dinez, disable her.”
“Wait, what?” I exclaimed. But while my brain was stalling, my body took over. In the time it took Dinez to draw a gun, suppressor already in place, I’d thrown myself into a somersault ending at his toes. I carried through my momentum by kicking both legs out as hard as I could at his right knee.
Dinez flinched away at the last moment, but not anywhere near enough. The kneecap gave away with a horrifying crack. The shot Dinez had been readying banged at the same moment, loud as a clap, and drilled a hole into the carpet.
As I sprang to my feet, Dinez collapsed. Though gasping in agony, he managed to hold on to the gun. So I stomped one pointy, impractical heel down into the back of his hand and ground it in. He howled, and my heel broke off, nailing his hand down. I stumbled back, snagging his gun as I went. I had to hold it upside down—I was starting to really hate these cuffs—but I could hold it.
As I backed up, Dinez swung his foot at me, but he had no leverage, so I let it connect and kicked his dislocated kneecap.
The blood drained from his face, and he didn’t try that again.
I got out of range, kicking off my broken shoes as I went.
The doorknob rattled. “My lord?” one of the knights in the hall cried. “My lord, are you all right?”
I trained the gun on Silvertip. He hadn’t moved an inch, but he had gone rigid as a crane, and he dug his fingers into his chair arms until fingertips and knuckles turned bone-bleached white. “You know what to say,
” I told him softly.
Silvertip swallowed. He did know. “Maintain your post, Bento,” he called back to the knight. “I’ll yell if I need you.”
“Yes, my lord.”
Sweat beaded Dinez’s forehead, but he was tough. He ripped out my shoe heel and stuffed his hand under his jacket to staunch the bleeding. Or that’s what it looked like; he’d gone tense in a way I didn’t like. Could he have a weapon in his jacket?
I took another step back, seeing the cold combat madness in his eyes. Captain Dinez, I thought, was the sort of man who’d spring at me with a knife even if I’d blown his leg off instead of merely wrecking the knee. Head knights play for keeps. I needed a definitive action.
The problem was, I had no idea what. I mean, yes, I could have shot them both then and there and then shot the knights in the hallway and anyone else in my way—at a guess, this semi-automatic held fourteen more rounds—but that’s not what I’d call a great plan. Even aside from the fact that within twenty-four hours I’d be hunted down, convicted of treason, and executed, my opponents were (for the moment) defenseless.
I can justify killing in defense of myself or of others. Not so much an unarmed politician, no matter how smarmy; nor a disabled knight. Not when there is any other option.
Guess I was back to gambling.
Silvertip shifted in his chair, and I snarled at him, “Hands up!”
He showed me his palms, but a smile curved his lips. “Amazing what stress can do, isn’t it?” he said, and I wondered at him having retained so much of his confidence. “It always makes people revert to type. Still going to deny you’re a spy, after taking out a highly trained head knight?”
“It wasn’t a fair fight,” I said. I shook my head, not taking my eyes off them for a moment. “Look, I have you both at gunpoint. I could hardly miss you from this distance, and despite his sneaky movements, your head knight isn’t in any condition to tackle me.
“Do you understand? I could kill you both, kill your guards, and walk away. That’s what a spy would do: kill you and run for safety. But I’m not a spy, I’m just not. I’m a personal assistant. I make great coffee, run errands, and tidy up after my boss. I’ve taken self-defense classes, like any sensible woman; and I’ve tussled with my brothers, because they’re older than me, and there’s a pecking order to maintain. But I am not a spy.”
Silvertip’s palms remained extended and empty, and his smile remained smug and disbelieving.
“I believe in the rule of law,” I told him, earnest but not weak; they wouldn’t believe “weak” anymore. “I believe that you’re a good man at heart and a good prefect. I understand that you got some misleading information at some point, that there’s been a terrible mistake somewhere. But I believe it was an honest mistake, and that we can figure out how to undo it. And I’m sorry I had to hurt you,” I told Captain Dinez. “I know you were just doing your job—but I didn’t want to be shot.”
I stepped back further, next to a side table, and took my finger out of the trigger guard. “I’m afraid,” I said, “but I don’t want to hurt anyone else. Please believe me. I just want to go home.” I ejected the magazine, tilted it onto the side table, and laid the gun beside it. “Please,” I said. “Please believe me. Please let me go home.”
Silvertip’s expression smoothed out and he nodded, coming to a decision. Continuing to show me that he wasn’t going for a weapon, he stood and went to the door.
I relaxed fractionally as the door clicked open, and the knights in the hallway came to attention. More witnesses was exactly what I wanted. “My lord?” Bento asked promptly.
“Help!” Silvertip cried, flinging a finger my way. “She’s trying to assassinate me!”
His delivery was weak, and if the knights had stopped for two seconds to look at my handcuffs and the emptied gun on the table, maybe they’d have wondered. But instead they spotted Captain Dinez, their fearless leader white-faced and agonized, blood staining the carpet, and their body language turned murderous.
That was my cue to scarper. I scooped up gun and magazine and bolted for the window. As I ran, I fired the shot I’d left in the gun’s chamber.
Ducking between shards of glass and skipping panty-hose-clad toes around anything shiny, I leapt through the window and onto the skewed boiled-egg ledge beyond, then flung myself to the right. Fire seared along my left arm. I instinctively tried to clutch it, but the cuffs wouldn’t let me. I kept glancing at it, amazed that such a slight graze could burn so badly.
It doesn’t matter, I told myself. It only mattered that I ran and that, as I ran, I worked out the curious puzzle of how to shove a magazine into a gun while rigid cuffs held my palms apart.
I rounded a corner and paused long enough to do what I needed: pin the magazine between my knees, shove the gun down over it, and whack the gun butt into the wall to lock the magazine in. Two seconds, three, and I went on running, thumbing the slide release as I went.
The ledge had been barely over a foot wide where I’d first stepped onto it, and the ground was a very, very long way down. Sunlight glared off the eggshell concrete of the ledge and the white concrete of the ground far below, and it turned the tinted windows into mirrors. Wind buffeted me, pushing and pulling toward the building, toward the edge.
The ledge widened until it was at its widest point—four feet—and then narrowed again to its skinniest as I rounded another curve.
A flash of movement, and I dropped onto my backside. Thunder broke the air a moment later, but the shot didn’t even come close. I rocked forward and fired between my legs, but the knight had already ducked away, and the only thing I managed to destroy was a chunk of concrete.
Without looking, I swung the gun above my head and fired behind me. I was rewarded by a cry of alarm. The knight who’d been chasing me must’ve not been hurt too badly, though; I could hear him mumbling into his radio.
I scooted up to my feet, facing the window. The room beyond was another sitting room of some variety, though it specialized in loveseats rather than armchairs, and I could see a collection of bookshelves. Unfortunately, Silvertip had apparently built his manor not thinking that anyone would run around the outside rings, because he’d neglected to put a window-opening latch on the outside.
Here was hoping the carpet padded any broken glass.
I fired right and left again, to stave off the knights, and then aimed for the window.
The door in the room beyond opened, and Silvertip stepped through. He made eye contact through tinted glass as he entered, and I was astonished to see the change in him. Stripped of the smugness, the smarminess, the politician’s façade, the look in his eyes was one of rodent fear. He froze like a rat in the light and then moved suddenly, raising his arm—
Hot metal pierced my scalp, and I was falling, falling backward over the edge, cuffed hands slapping helplessly.
For an instant, my fingertips caught on the ledge. I slung inward, smacked into solid concrete, and dropped again. My stomach flipped and then I landed hard on the ledge below, legs crumpling beneath me.
I rolled against the window, hugging it as I gaped like a beached fish. I could feel the cold glass, but my vision had turned black. Then oxygen flooded into my lungs and stars flashed. I wiped blood from my eyes and blinked down at the vivid scarlet smear staining the white concrete.
My gun was, of course, gone.
Dizziness crowded in on me. I didn’t trust myself to stand, so I crawled, shredding the remains of my pantyhose into bloody threads. My knees didn’t much like it either.
Alarms blared to life, and red lights swirled. Had they lost track of me? It hardly seemed possible. But knighthouse doors slammed open and knights jogged out with military precision, some of them adjusting their green-and-silver uniforms or listening seriously to radios. It struck me then, as it never had before, the extent to which Silvertip kept a small army on his grounds. I knew he had to keep men, to protect his prefecture and lend support to the king in times of war, but
despite technically knowing how many there were at the manor, I’d never processed it. I’d assumed that most of them patrolled the border, where Silvertip met the bay separating Carina from Akter. What did he do with so many knights here?
In another moment, they were going to think to look up, and then they’d spot me. I stopped crawling and lay on my stomach. I’d again reached a narrow part of the ledge, and the ledge below me was two, three feet wider. I could try a controlled drop.
Of course, if I missed, they’d be scraping my remains off the concrete ground with a spatula—and if I didn’t miss, it was still a fifteen-foot drop. Even if I didn’t break my ankle, I’d probably be spotted. But what choice did I have? Staying here, I’d definitely be spotted.
If I thought about it, I’d chicken out. So I didn’t think about it. I rolled to face the building and prepared to fall.
Chapter 16:
Human Hunting
In retrospect, it was obvious, but it honestly never occurred to me to check. It was sheer luck that I glanced up and over before dropping, and that up and over was exactly the location of the open window.
Too relieved to feel stupid, I scooted toward it on my backside, ending the blood trail where I’d intended to jump. I’d probably dribbled blood over the side, too, and with luck down onto the ledge below. I’d rather them be hunting me the floor above than the floor below, but as long as they weren’t hunting on the same floor, I’d take it.
Three yards later, I pressed my nose against the glass long enough to make sure there was no one—or no one with an obvious gun—in the room beyond. There wasn’t, so I got in in a jiffy, latching the window behind me.
Bargaining Power Page 17